eliotalenwalnut

Pieces of his face smear out of place, waft into kites, float off up behind him walking the desert highway towards a sun glare off the tin roof of a soda fountain in the distance. By the time he gets there his face is red muscle, dried and tightened from the heat; rim of teeth, holes in the skull for a nose, bug eyes.  He grabs a Coca-Cola, drops a dollar on the counter, and leaves the pop shop. Texas Tim spins around on his stool, looks up at George putting the bill in the cash machine and says, "that there's a good man's done terrible things.  Sloughing of the face is an allergy of regret."

...from several years back... Butterchops comes screaming west down highway 8 mounted on his thunder growling motorbike, smashing the silent pink desert morning with the primordial sounds of Hell’s ninth gate.  Hair flared out in the wind like Satan’s wrath of fire, leather jacket puffed up with the painted image of Santa Claus guzzling beer across his broad muscled back, blue kerchief flapping frantically round a thick oily neck.  He comes ramming headfirst into a horizon that shoots up jagged mountain borders cutting the desert off at its tracks eighty miles ahead.  Rgggggggggr Rggggggggr!!!, the meanest of The Santa’s Elves

[…the mess of walking in on Faulkner killing babies; clip their wings, set them in flight, fill the trash…] Carry it, the ratchet.  Systematic spirals.  Internal salvation; the festering gut.  These children scabbed and skinless stretched out fathoms on railroad tracks in desert yard heaps and salty wind ripping at the cords of reason.  Wake up with hands reaching out to put you to sleep.  Subconscious images puddle out the pores beneath the scalp frothing up butter jaundice dreams a thick creamy stew boiling over the maggots scraping out the inside.  Crouching at the edge of sight, blubberous velvet barnacle black tentacles windin